Houseparty established its brand as the app teens were using to chat with groups of friends without leaving the house. Pros: Simple drop-in, drop-out group chat, built-in gamesĬons: Basically a trojan horse for Heads Up, sudden popularity has affected video quality Instagram has video calling built into direct messages, which is nice for quick calls with people you aren’t sure you want to bring into a smaller circle of connectivity. But if your friends do happen to have Apple products, it’s a great, simple, and secure option.
If you and your friends are finding it hard to set aside half an hour to talk live, this can be a good alternative.įaceTime is great, but it’s not cross-platform, considerably limiting its usefulness. Marco Polo is like a streamlined Snapchat, sending short videos to friends or groups with the option to add doodles, filters and so on. This isn’t a video chat app per se, but the fact is not everyone really wants to do a full-on live face-to-face video all the time. Pros: Video messaging is a fun alternative to live chats If your friends don’t want to sign up for a new account anywhere, this is a good option - just don’t get attached, as unpopular Google products don’t tend to live for long. But the apps work pretty well for now, plugging into your existing Google contacts and accounts and letting you do straightforward, unlimited video calls. Pros: Simple interface, uses existing Google accountĬons: Confusing platform issues, Duo may not be long for this worldĭuo is one of Google’s later messaging products, started as a complement to Allo and meant to be sort of the consumer version of Hangouts, which is being split into Chat and Meet, but still exists on its own. Google Duo or Hangouts (iOS, Android, web) To activate it, start a group chat and then hit the call button at the top right and select the participants, then hit the camera. With a focus on privacy, WhatsApp is popular around the world despite being super ugly, and while video calls aren’t its main feature, they are possible if you don’t mind a four-person limit. Think of WhatsApp as FB Messenger’s nerdier, less-good-looking sibling. WhatsApp Messenger (iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, web) But Messenger use is considerably better protected from Facebook snooping than posts and images on the main site. Of course, it’s also a Facebook product, meaning you’ll need an account there - not something everyone is into.
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It supports up to eight people in free video calls with no duration limit, and when you are doing a two-person call it switches to a peer-to-peer structure, skipping servers and potentially avoiding congestion. Messenger is a popular app for good reason - it works well for pretty much every kind of digital communication you might want to do with your friends. Pros: Easy to use, many people already on it, some handy group features For friends and familyįB Messenger (iOS, Android, Mac, Windows) In fact, with so many other perfectly good options available, it’s hard to recommend using it at all. We recommend against using Zoom for any call in which sensitive information may be discussed.
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Originally it was listed here as a good general-purpose option due to those pluses, but reports have multiplied that the software uses poor security standards and other shady practices which the company has deliberately misrepresented.
Zoom is one of the most popular business video conference apps out there due to its reliability, solid web integration and other features. As long as you focus on just the video calls, it’s great, but Skype’s emoji reactions, status updates and other cruft are best avoided. Skype has been around for a long time, and while its desktop app is pretty weak, the mobile version is solid and it supports big groups with no real time limit (four hours per call, 100 hours per month), for free.
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